Does 'Yuck' mean 'Eek'? Fear responses in children after a disgust manipulation

Age-related disgust responses to signs of disease

Previous studies found similarities in adults' disgust responses to benign (e.g. obesity) and actual disease signs (e.g. influenza). However, limited research has compared visual (i.e. benign and actual) to cognitive (i.e. disease label) disease cues in different age groups. The current study investigated disgust responses across middle childhood (7-9 years), late childhood (10-12 years), adolescence (13-17 years), and adulthood (18+ years). Participants viewed individuals representing a benign visual disease (obese), sick-looking (staphylococcus), sick-label (cold/flu), and healthy condition. Disgust-related outcomes were: (1) avoidance, or contact level with apparel the individual was said to have worn, (2) disgust facial reactions, and (3) a combination of (1) and (2). Avoidance was greater for the sick-looking and sick-label than the healthy and obese conditions. For facial reaction and combination outcomes, middle childhood participants responded with greater disgust to the sick-looking than the healthy condition, while late childhood participants expressed stronger disgust towards the sick-looking and obese conditions than the healthy condition. Adolescents and adults exhibited stronger disgust towards sick-label and sick-looking than obese and healthy conditions. Results suggest visual cues are central to children's disgust responses whereas adolescents and adult responses considered cognitive cues.

Effects of "Dirty" Information on Disgust Responding to an Unknown Animal in Children: The Moderating Role of Maternal Disgust Proneness

Although research has shown that disgust facilitates avoidance of small animals among adults, much less is known about disgust appraisals of small animals in children as well as the predictors of such appraisals. To address this gap, children (ages 5-13) were exposed to dirt-related and cleanliness-related information about unknown animals. The extent to which these types of information influenced children's feelings of fear, disgust, positivity, and avoidance behavior in relation to the animals was examined. The present study then examined the extent to which child and maternal disgust proneness predicted feelings of disgust to the 'dirty' animal. The findings show that providing dirt-related information resulted in a significant increase in disgust, but not fear, responding to the animal. Dirt-related information also resulted in a significant decrease in positive feelings toward the animal. Conversely, providing cleanliness-related information resulted in a significant decrease in disgust, but not fear, responding to the animal. In addition, providing cleanliness-related information resulted in a significant increase in positive feelings toward the animal. Children also engage in more avoidance of the animal described as dirty compared to the animal described as clean. In addition, subsequent analysis revealed an interaction between child and maternal disgust propensity in predicting learned disgust to the dirty animal such that the highest levels of feelings of disgust to the dirty animal were observed among children with high disgust proneness who also have mothers with high disgust proneness. The implications of these findings for conceptualizing the role of disgust in animal phobias among youth will be discussed.

Cognitive mechanisms of disgust in the development and maintenance of psychopathology: A qualitative review and synthesis

A growing body of research has implicated disgust in various psychopathologies, especially anxiety-related disorders. Although the observed role of disgust in many disorders is robust, the mechanisms that may explain this role are unclear. Cutting-edge research in cognitive science has the potential to elucidate such mechanisms and consequently improve our understanding of how disgust contributes to the etiology and maintenance of psychopathology. In this qualitative review, we systematically assess cognitive bias mechanisms that have been linked to disgust and its disorders. This review suggests that disgust-related biases may be observed in memory, interpretation, judgment of expectancies, and attention, as well as at implicit levels. Of these cognitive domains, the most robust bias appears to be observed at the level of attention. However, reliable moderators of attentional biases for disgust have not yet been identified, and this bias has not been systematically linked to other levels of analysis. Despite these limitations, the available research indicates that attentional avoidance rather than orienting or maintenance may be the most characteristic of disgust. Attentional avoidance of disgust may have important implications for etiological and treatment models of disorders characterized by excessive disgust reactions. The implications for advancing such models are discussed in the context of a combined cognitive bias hypothesis.

Is Disgust Proneness Associated With Anxiety and Related Disorders? A Qualitative Review and Meta-Analysis of Group Comparison and Correlational Studies

Research suggests that disgust may be linked to the etiology of some anxiety-related disorders. The present investigation reviews this literature and employs separate meta-analyses of clinical group comparison and correlational studies to examine the association between disgust proneness and anxiety-related disorder symptoms. Meta-analysis of 43 group comparison studies revealed those high in anxiety disorder symptoms reported significantly more disgust proneness than those low in anxiety symptoms. Although this effect was not moderated by clinical versus analogue studies or type of disorder, larger group differences were observed for those high in anxiety symptoms associated with contagion concerns compared to those high in anxiety symptoms not associated with contagion concerns. Similarly, meta-analysis of correlational data across 83 samples revealed moderate associations between disgust proneness and anxiety-related disorder symptoms. Moderator analysis revealed that the association between disgust proneness and anxiety-related disorder symptoms was especially robust for anxiety symptoms associated with contagion concerns. After controlling for measures of negative affect, disgust proneness continued to be moderately correlated with anxiety-related disorder symptoms. However, negative affect was no longer significantly associated with symptoms of anxiety-related disorders when controlling for disgust proneness. The implications of these findings are discussed in the context of a novel transdiagnostic model.

Disgust proneness predicts obsessive-compulsive disorder symptom severity in a clinical sample of youth: Distinctions from negative affect

BACKGROUND

Although studies have linked disgust proneness to the etiology and maintenance of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in adults, there remains a paucity of research examining the specificity of this association among youth.

METHOD

The present study employed structural equation modeling to examine the association between disgust proneness, negative affect, and OCD symptom severity in a clinical sample of youth admitted to a residential treatment facility (N =471).

RESULTS

Results indicate that disgust proneness and negative affect latent factors independently predicted an OCD symptom severity latent factor. However, when both variables were modeled as predictors simultaneously, latent disgust proneness remained significantly associated with OCD symptom severity, whereas the association between latent negative affect and OCD symptom severity became nonsignificant. Tests of mediation converged in support of disgust proneness as a significant intervening variable between negative affect and OCD symptom severity. Subsequent analysis showed that the path from disgust proneness to OCD symptom severity in the structural model was significantly stronger among those without a primary diagnosis of OCD compared to those with a primary diagnosis of OCD.

LIMITATIONS

Given the cross-sectional design, the causal inferences that can be made are limited. The present study is also limited by the exclusive reliance on self-report measures.

CONCLUSIONS

Disgust proneness may play a uniquely important role in OCD among youth.

Is disgust prepared? A preliminary examination in young children

Children may be prepared to associate adult disgust reactions with adult disgust elicitors. To test this, three-year olds (and adults) were presented with two images and an emotive vocalization. The images and vocalizations included stimuli adults found disgusting, fear-provoking, and sad. On one set of trials, the main dependent variable (DV) was time spent looking at each image and on a second set of repeat trials the DV was knowledge of image-sound matches. Fear and disgust vocalizations were both more effective at orienting a child's attention to adult fear and disgust images, than sad vocalizations. Parental disgust sensitivity was associated with this effect, moderated by explicit matching knowledge. Matching knowledge was poor in children and good in adults. These data suggest that in children, fear and disgust vocalizations may both promote attention to stimuli that adults find disgusting and/or fear-provoking, suggesting that "preparedness" may not be wholly emotion-specific.

Change in disgust reactions following cognitive-behavioral therapy for childhood anxiety disorders

Disgust, in addition to fear, is a prominent emotional state associated with avoidance of distressing stimuli. While most of the research in disgust has been conducted in relation to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), recent data has also implicated disgust in the etiology of anxiety disorders in general. Studies have shown that decreases in disgust are key to symptom reduction in individuals with OCD. However, there has been little empirical work exploring whether these interventions are efficacious for childhood anxiety disorders that present with prominent disgust components. This study examined how disgust propensity in children with anxiety disorders responds to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) with an emphasis on exposure. Forty-one children, ages 7 to 17, with anxiety disorders were evaluated for disgust propensity and were treated with intensive, weekly, CBT. It was found that disgust levels decreased following treatment across all anxiety disorder diagnoses, where children with primary OCD exhibited significantly greater reductions. Clinical implications and suggestions for further research of the treatment of disgust in relation to childhood anxiety disorders are discussed.

Nonverbal and verbal transmission of disgust from mothers to offspring: effects on children's evaluation of a novel animal

This study examined parent-offspring communication of disgust-related information and its effects on children's feelings of disgust and fear towards an animal. Mothers were instructed to provide information about a novel animal to their children (N=60) by studying in secrecy either disgusting or neutral attributes that were allegedly characteristic of this animal. First, mothers were instructed to do this in a nonverbal way; then they were also allowed to use verbal utterances. Results indicated that nonverbal communication of disgust by the mothers failed to produce any effects on offspring's subjective evaluations of the animal. However, verbal information transmission did have a differential impact on children's feelings of disgust and fear. That is, children to whom mothers had verbally communicated about a set of disgusting specimens not only displayed higher levels of disgust (Cohen's d=1.02) but also exhibited higher levels of fear (Cohen's d=.62) towards the novel animal as compared to children to whom mothers had verbally communicated about neutral specimens. The effect on fear was mainly due to the fact that children after the verbal neutral information exhibited a clear decline in fear, whereas children to whom mothers had provided verbal disgust information maintained a similar level of fear towards the animal. The implications of these results for the familial transmission of disgust and fear will be discussed.